Dad's Football Recap

Alright Pops, now that around 80% of my readers have clicked over to somewhere else, it’s just you and me and a few other various sports fans and diehards to talk a little pigskin. We are heading down the stretch in the NFL season with 3 weeks to go after tonight’s important Monday night match up, and in college the BCS has made their proclamations and determined who among the nine teams with a legitimate claim to play for the title got the nod, and who filled out the remaining of the available bowl slots.

Starting with the pros, where they still settle it like men, the old-fashioned way on the field of play. (Since most of my readers are women and they have mostly glossed over this one, I can be all machismo this morning, which I think is necessary to get the workweek off to a start) With 13 games down and 3 to go the Titans and Giants remain at the head of their respective classes, Tennessee is a stellar 12-1 while NYG is at 11-2 after losing a close game to the Eagles yesterday, who may have salvaged their season with the win. The Titans have clinched and now face the dilemma of how hard to go after it these last three weeks, they run the risk of needless injuries or of losing their sharpness depending on what they do, and they will need to be sharp heading into the AFC tournament as the competition is pretty steep.

The Steelers and Colts are looking like the biggest challengers at this point outside of Nashville, Pittsburgh had an impressive 4th quarter comeback against the Cowboys yesterday, outscoring Dallas 17-0 in the last quarter. You gotta like a team that can close a game like that, and Pitt has all the ingredients that make for success in January, good QB play, a running game, an offensive line that gets after it, a stellar defense, and quality coaching, which is the same formula for success since back in the 60’s when you used to watch the games. Another team to watch for though is the Baltimore Ravens, who have those same ingredients. They closed out the Redskins last night with a 4th quarter drive that was a thing of beauty for this old-school football fan.

After the ‘Skins got to within a touchdown with over 11 minutes still to go, Baltimore proceeded to take the ball and run with it, literally for something like 11 or 12 straight plays, marching down the field, moving the chains, and eating up precious clock. Then just when they had the Washington defense sucked in, they go long and their rookie QB Joe Flaco delivers the knockout blow with a touchdown pass. Ballgame. Indy is looking well also, they are on a roll and are tied with Baltimore for the two wild card spots at 9-4. There are a bunch of 8-5 teams that are in contention, but none of them strike me as serious contenders for anything more than a first round playoff exit, and that group includes the Broncos, Patriots, Jets, and Dolphins.

Over in the NFC the Giants are still the dominant team despite their division loss yesterday, and can clinch with a win over the up and down Cowboys this Sunday. The Cowboys are a disappointing 8-5, that is unless you are a Cowboy hater like me, in which case you take perverse pleasure in their struggle, being just good enough to give their fans hope but then inevitably crushing those hopes. The only thing you can count on with the Cowboys is that the most overrated wide out on the planet, the guy I call Toe because he’s only worth one syllable, will have a diva moment on the sidelines where the cameras capture him yelling at some assistant coach over some perceived wrong. The Eagles and Redskins are still alive for the wild card, as are a bunch of other teams who really don’t matter because they’re not much good.

The two teams that do seem up to the challenge of knocking the defending champs off their perch will match up tonight in an old-fashioned Monday nighter, which is to say a game with playoff implications. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by old guy QB Jeff Garcia go up against the Carolina Panthers, the winner will emerge at 10-3 and in control in the South Division, while even the loser will still be at 9-4 and in control in the wild card race. (As an aside, a guy just sat down next to me at Starbucks with an SF Giants cap, and it reminds me of the guy I threw up near at the Dodger game when I was a kid on picture day when we got there early and I pounded about 5 or 6 orange sodas on a hot summer day. Ahh, the memories)

You may have heard that the Arizona Cardinals have clinched a division title, as it seems to be newsworthy considering it hasn’t happened since 1975, when your second son was born. Don’t get too excited about the Cards though, they have an 8-5 record, but 5 of those wins have come within the division, which is the weakest in the league. To give you an idea, the Seahawks and Rams will be battling for 3rd place when they do battle this Sunday, both teams are 2-11, and the second place ‘Niners need to run the table in order to finish at .500. So with a 3-5 record outside the division, the Red Birds seem poised for an early exit come the playoffs, but they are selling some gear, I’ve never seen so much Cardinals paraphernalia as I have over the last couple months out here.

The last theme I want to mention before I move to the college scene and their faux championship game, is that this is the year of the old guy QB’s in the NFL. I am officially rooting for any team with an old guy QB, which includes Kurt Warner of the Cards, Jeff Garcia of the Bucs, Kerry Collins of the Titans, and Brett Favre, the dean of the club playing for the Jets. Since my Raiders are off to yet another season of double digit losses at 3-10, I’ve got to have someone to root for and who better than the old guys who are getting it done. And I don’t know how they do it, two hours after my 5 or 6 mile runs, my 38 year-old legs are feeling every bit of it, and these guys play NFL football every Sunday. The only thing I can think is that it must take them hours to get out of bed on Monday morning, kind of like Mac Davis in the movie “North Dallas Forty”.

So as for the college façade, the Ministry of Championships has determined that the two best teams in the country are Oklahoma and Florida, and therefore they will be playing for the title, more mythical than ever, a week after New Year’s. Both teams are superb, but so are seven other teams that finished the season with one loss or fewer. That group includes outsiders Utah and Boise State who I’m pretty sure are unbeaten, and big conference teams Texas, who beat Oklahoma yet got jumped in the bogus polls by the Sooners, Texas Tech, who beat Texas, USC, Penn State, and Alabama, who didn’t lose all season until going down to the Florida Gators in the SEC championship on Saturday.

How any ranking system, human, computer, or otherwise can pick two among these teams is beyond me, since they don’t play each other and therefore there is no way to determine which conference is better and which teams are actually the best. Oh wait, I just thought of a way, how about an 8 team playoff to decide it on the field, the way the NFL does? Too bad the geniuses that run the sport, mainly the college presidents who have the biggest say in such things, are such a dense bunch, because having an 8 team playoff played out over three weeks seems to me to be a huge event that would garner great TV ratings and please football fans, a win-win if there ever was one. An idea so good only a bunch of academics could fail to see it.

The game that still matters the most to me though is the granddaddy of ‘em all, the Rose Bowl, which is still played on New Year’s Day, and this year should be a good one as ‘SC takes on Penn State. Since our Bruins couldn’t pull off the upset on Saturday, the Trojans are back in the big game for the fourth straight year, and with their offensive prowess and speed figure to roll over the Nittany Lions, but you never know, the Big Ten did get two teams into the BCS as Ohio State will be playing Texas in the Fiesta Bowl. Another interesting bowl match-up is the Sugar Bowl, which features Alabama against Utah, it is always interesting to see how the non-BCS schools do against the Big Boys. The other game is a dog and matches the winners of two conferences that don’t even deserve an automatic bid anymore and are therefore not even worth the mention. In fact, my criteria for bowl watching this year is that the game must be a contest between two ten win teams or better, which may relegate me to the big games just mentioned.

Alright sports fans, consider yourselves updated. Here’s hoping that this week moves quickly, and remember, only 17 more shopping days until Xmas. In case you weren’t watching football yesterday afternoon and you missed the 37 Cadillac commercials, you can run out and get your new Escalade for 12K off of list price, at only 57K! But hurry while supplies last, and the company that makes them is still in business.